Les Grottes de Thouzon

The following morning I wanted to explore the areas outside of Avignon but, while there were so many awesome things to see, there were no buses or trains to take me there. I tried to rent a car but I didn’t have my international driver’s license. Then I discovered that any idiot could rent a moped as long as they didn’t go on the Autobahn so I did just that! Good for me, bad for the other motorists. My dorky-looking moped had a top speed of 50k per hour. I learned how to drive it on a super busy street in Avignon much to the annoyance of all the people who honked at me in French, which I assume means the same thing in English. You would think they could have cut me some slack. After all, I was on a rented moped driving slowly along the side of the road carrying 15 square feet of map – the smallest one I could find. After negotiating numerous traffic circles without causing bodily harm to others and myself I managed to make the chilly journey to the caves in Thor only to discover they were closed for the next two hours. It was low season and attractions such as the caves had cut back their operating hours.

I killed the time by visiting the nearby town of Thor arriving at the beginning of naptime which is everyday between noon and 2pm. Fortunately I was lucky enough to buy a piece of pizza from a small café just before it closed. I walked around the empty town wondering if everyone was actually taking a nap. It was so weird to see a town with nothing open in the middle of the afternoon. When I drove back to the caves, I was thankful to find them open so I signed up for the next tour. The Thouzon caves were discovered by chance in 1902 when a cliff was blasted while excavating a quarry and workers penetrated the opening. They were amazed by all the stalactites that hung from the ceiling. The tour follows a fossilized bed of a dried up underground river which creates a narrow path. The 23-meter long Les Grottes de Thouzon is the only cave in the Vaucluse area open to the public. Our guide told us all about the caves in French which would have been great if I spoke French. I am pretty sure she was saying “this is a cool cave with cool stuff dangling from the ceiling”, so I just went with that. When we reached the heart of the cave the lights went out and we were treated to a short presentation and lightshow. Being in a dark cave was pretty eerie; I could not imagine being the first person to discover a new cave. Perhaps I’ll just stick to the caves that have already been explored with bright lights already installed.